Choice Review

This ethnographic collection is an important addition to the literature on transnational migration and related issues of identity, citizenship, and belonging. The book's major strength is that it brings together material from the US and Western Europe, an approach that offers valuable insights not just on the range of immigrant experiences, but on the diversity of national contexts in which migrants find themselves. One of the contributors explains that his chapter on Latin Americans in the UK eschews "the prevailing treatment of migrants as passive objects of policies" and examines them "as political actors." This is very much how the different authors conceptualize immigrants: actors with agency and collective initiatives that are often political. Whether in Europe or in the US, the contributors use examples and deploy approaches that open up the immigration debate. Readers learn, for example, how born-again Christianity can bring migrants and natives into local and global political engagement, while another essay discusses the significance of a recent Mexican president's reference to his country as "a trans-national Mexican nation." This anthology does much to further understanding of a complex phenomenon that transcends the cultural logics of territoriality. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. O. Pi-Sunyer emeritus, University of Massachusetts at Amherst